GREEN BAY - Authorities say a Green Bay woman beat her children with sticks and household items leaving bruises and dozens of scars on their bodies.

Kim Fruin, 42, was charged Monday with three felony counts of repeated physical abuse of a child and three misdemeanor counts of child neglect.

According to the criminal complaint, the abuse came to light March 16 when the children's pastor reported it to Child Protective Services.

Green Bay Police officers and a CPS employee took the children, ages 8, 10 and 12, to a hospital, where doctors found bruising and scarring all over their bodies, according to a criminal complaint.

The boy had between 40 and 50 scars on his body. The two girls also had numerous scars.

The children told investigators their mother hit them with a leather belt and “sticks.”

One of the girls showed officers a belt, a plastic spatula, a metal spatula used for grilling, a metal spoon, sticks and rods that their mother used to hit the children. In her brother’s room, she showed officers a closet that contained multiple rods, curtain rods and wooden sticks.

Officers found pieces of wood and a belt in the house. Fruin also showed officers two 4½ to 5-foot-long wooden slats that she said she would break into smaller pieces that she used to strike the children when they misbehaved.

The report states the children’s 79-year-old father did not report the abuse because he was worried his wife would not allow him to see the children.

He told officers the children had begun telling him about the abuse in the last several weeks and he had previously noticed bruises and cuts. He tried to talk to his wife about her treatment of the children but she told him it was her "parenting style" and then she told him she would keep him from seeing the children if he told anyone.